The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Puppy Kingpin | 6. License to Sell

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

The Iowa AG’s lawsuit against Jolyn comes to a conclusion as she faces challenges from multiple sides. Alex looks more closely at the USDA as a growing number of breeders and animal rights activists think a USDA license doesn’t mean much anymore. A Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment production. Unlock all episodes of Smoke Screen, ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Plus, get binge access to brand new stories dropping on the first of every month — that’s all episodes, all at once, all ad-free. Just click ‘Subscribe’ on the top of the Smoke Screen show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. At the heart of all these fights against JoLynn and her business is the customer.

The people who could and did buy puppies from JoLynn. I know there are passionate dog lovers who might look down on people who got a puppy from a pet store. Only a sliver of Americans who buy dogs get them from places like Pocket Puppies or Shake-A-Paw. But it's still enough to support a multi-million dollar industry. One that lines the pockets of brokers like JoLynn and a lot of breeders with less stellar reputations. Sometimes a parent wants a last-minute birthday gift for their kid, or people want a specific breed and don't have the time or the money to visit a breeder. Did JoLynn's customers know they got their puppy from a puppy

mill, or were they deceived? I wanted to talk to a customer. So I opened up the folder on my computer where I kept the evidence from Iowa's case against Hobo Canine. There are several lists of customers. I turned on my recorder and started calling them, one by one. Alright, and this is the paperwork that just says who bought the dog, their address, what kind of dog it is, where the dog was fromine rescue and went to Elisa and the breed of the dog is a male teddy bear Bichon so Lisa is the first one on the list You have reached has been disconnected or is no longer in service. That's a good sign of how things will go. I left more than 30 messages. The wireless customer you are calling is not available. Most customers either didn't call me back or told me they didn't want to be interviewed.

But then Cecilia Palma called. Hi Alex, I'm so sorry for never replying back to you. Cecilia took a while to call me back because the phone number I'd called was actually her sister's number. She tells me she's 22, lives in the Chicago area, and works for Tiffany's. Cecilia told me that years ago, her family had to give up a beloved cocker spaniel. They were forced to leave their house and couldn't find any pet-friendly housing. And then three years passed, and my dad's like, let's get a cocker spaniel, like, let's do our research.

They specifically wanted a cocker spaniel again, just like the one they had to give up. They went to the store that had them available the fastest. It was a store called Petlove. Cecilia and her family found Frida. According to the Petlove paperwork, she paid $1,350 in cash. The breeder listed on the form, Hobo Canine Rescue. They said her mom was rescued and pretty much the babies and the mom had to be separated. No one had told Cecilia that Frida wasn't a rescue until I'd left the message for her.

Originally, Cecilia wanted to bring her home because Frida was the breed they wanted. But the fact she was a rescue was a selling point. I feel like we wanted a Cocker Spaniel so bad. I think then when they had told us that she was rescued, I felt like that made me want her even more. And I was like, you know what, like, let's not look somewhere else. Why don't we just get her? Frida is still with Cecilia, living her best life. She's healthy, but Cecilia said like any good parent, she worries about some of her behavioral issues.

Cecilia also told me that Frida gets anxious when she socializes. She can't be around kids or even play with other pets at the dog park. Cecilia is happy to let Frida follow her everywhere and be by her side. She's her dog, and Cecilia would never change that. But she does wish she hadn't been lied to. The pet store could have just told her straight up who Frida's breeder was and how she was raised, instead of claiming she was rescued. She doesn't feel great about unwittingly supporting a puppy mill. You want to stop people from breeding dogs in that way, you know? In case you couldn't understand that, she said you want to stop people from breeding dogs in that way.

She hadn't set out to buy a commercially bred puppy. So Cecilia kind of falls in the middle of this debate. She wanted a specific purebred breed, which is how she ended up at the store. But she didn't want to support inhumane treatment or be lied to when she bought her dog. Cecilia's probably like a lot of people. They want purebred dogs, but don't want them to be mistreated. But when I'm asking questions of JoLynn and her defenders, it's as if concerns of dog owners don't exist. They say the accusations of mistreatment are entirely made up by animal rights activists. JoLynn did defend herself in the only email she's ever sent me. We've asked someone to read what she sent. I will say this. I stand behind what I do for a living. I know this industry and I know canine husbandry. I strive to excel at both. I am honest. I am fair. I am passionate about what I do. I persevere and search for ways to always do better.

But the main reason she wouldn't speak was because of animal rights activists, which she called ARs. The few, the far, the in-betweens that the ARs focus on are all very, very unfortunate, sad consequences of life. Puppies, as well as ourselves, are all living, breathing animals. This industry provides way more good in the world than it ever has and ever will bad. Do the lies have truths and stretches of the truth that the ARs say about this industry, my company, and more personally, me, bother me?

Of course they do. But the ARs do not care what I have to say. She did tell me, though, that if regulators asked her questions, she'd answer them. But when she emailed me back, she didn't mention dog owners once. She was worried about activists. Unfortunately, Alex, the ARs use media to further their agendas, and I can't contribute to that. Good luck with your story. She put the word story in quotation marks, as if my reporting isn't looking into something real, as if consumers aren't affected by business practices like hers,

and none of this needs to be talked about at all. Still, JoLynn was facing accusations of defrauding people like Cecilia, but would she face any consequences? From Neon Home Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Alex Schumann. This is Smokescreen, Puppy Kingpin, an investigation into the mastermind trafficking puppies nationwide in the scheme to hide the truth. By March 2020, Jack's Puppies faced millions of dollars in fines. Potentially, the whole company was at risk. Animal rights advocates were trying everything they could to cut off business to puppy mills. Back then, JoLynn and Kimberly's rescues were connected

to three different lawsuits. You'll remember the Iowa AG's office had accused JoLynn of puppy laundering. After they filed, JoLynn's lawyers hit back. They tried to get a judge to throw out the lawsuit. They failed. Andrew Siederdahl, the attorney leading the case for the AG, thought the facts were on his side. Then it was pretty clear that, you know, things weren't going their way. JoLynn's attorneys offered to settle. A lot was at stake. If the AG's office won, a judge could shut down JoLynn's rescues,

she'd have to pay back everyone who bought one of their dogs, and the rescues could be liable for up to $40,000 per violation. If you counted each dog she was accused of selling through a rescue as a violation, the maximum fine would be nearly $144 million. But she wouldn't end up paying that. Angel Lynn would never have to talk publicly on the stand about her sham rescues. On March 25, 2020, the Iowa Attorney General's Office announced a deal with JoLynn and her associates. We came to what I think is a strong resolution of the case. We obtained dissolution of both Hobo Canine Rescue and Rescue Pets Iowa Corp. Permanent dissolution, which is perceived to be commonly a pretty extreme remedy.

It doesn't happen very often to completely dissolve nonprofits. It's basically like the death penalty of a nonprofit. So here's what happened under the deal. Hobo Canine and Rescue Pets Iowa had to be shut down. Jolynn Nothi, Kimberly Dolphin, and Russell Kirk are banned from starting any new nonprofits for three years. JoLynn and Kimberly also cannot knowingly sell a dog in a place that's banned the sale of commercially bred dogs. But here's the thing. JoLynn never had to admit guilt. And instead of paying millions, the three of them were fined only $60,000. The other big thing was that Jack's Puppies, JoLynn and Kimberly's for-profit business,

was allowed to stay open. The nonprofits are gone, but Jack's is still delivering thousands of puppies to stores all over the country. I asked Mindy Callison, who'd spent years combing through health certificates, how she felt about the settlement. I'm, first of all, very thankful that they had the settlement go the way it did,

that they affirmed everything we were all saying, that these were sham rescues that were committing fraud. So that was very validating because we had been saying this all over the country. We had been trying to fight this in Chicago, trying to fight this in California. So the AG's ruling was very, very helpful. However, did it go far enough? Mindy made the point that JoLynn's fake rescues reported making hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a couple years. The fact that this laundering scheme continued to make JoLynn Nowitz and her company very wealthy is heartbreaking. And they

got like a $60,000 fine, I think is what it was. That's pocket change. That's one shipment of puppies. Like it's, why did they get off so easily? I get what she's saying. The fine didn't really hurt their bottom line. And let's not forget, the settlement closed the non-profits, but JoLynn's for-profit business didn't get punished. Jack's Puppies still advertises itself online as a breeder, even though under oath, JoLynn says she doesn't breed any dogs. Mindy wanted more, but Andrew told me asking a judge to shut down a legal business is a tall order. So likely, only part of JoLynn's

operation would have had to stop selling puppies. In my view, what a judge would order in this case would be stop the puppy laundering, but you can continue to sell dogs as long as it's legal. All in all, Andrew considered this a good deal. At the end of the day, as a law enforcement guy, what I will be doing is watching out for those that are taking advantage of this debate and the confusion, you know, to perpetuate fraud. And so we'll be there for that and we'll be watching. Andrew's focus had been on JoLynn and Kimberly misusing their charity status to benefit their for-profit business. So to an animal rights advocate, this deal can feel like when Al Capone got caught for tax evasion instead of, you know, everything else.

But this case was a big win for transparency. Think how much you've heard about how puppies make their way into hundreds of thousands of homes. We wouldn't have known those details if Andrew's lawsuit was never filed. Because of the lawsuit, for the first time ever, Jack's Puppies made the list of the horrible hundred. Every year, the Humane Society of the United States puts together a list of who they consider problem puppy breeders and sellers. The list is described as a warning for consumers about operations that have poor, inhumane conditions. The list usually gets a lot of attention each time it's released.

Jack's puppies showing up on a list that's distributed nationwide on TV meant JoLynn couldn't hide the accusations against her. Puppy mills will pretend to be rescues and then sell illegally bred dogs at exaggerated prices across the nation. Unfortunately, one of those operations is in the North Iowa area. Jack's Puppies in Britt, Iowa, is one of 13 in the state. The Iowa Attorney General's Office wants Rescue Pets Iowa dissolved, saying it and a handful of other puppy mill-type operations are a sham. It turned out that something that seemed designed to keep Jack's puppies out of the spotlight ended up only making them stand out more. The AG's settlement also lays a foundation for future cases.

Activists told me that they gave the same evidence to multiple AG offices. Only one did anything at all. There's still time for other AGs to act. The puppies in the alleged scam went to California, Illinois, Florida, Missouri, and New Jersey. One pet store sold $1.1 million worth of puppies from Hobo Canine. Now, all of that was stopped. Other states have passed bans on selling millbred puppies in their state. But Iowa's AG is the only law enforcement that shut down these kinds of fake rescues.

In the spring of 2020, Jolin's business wasn't the only one being threatened. Remember Mindy Patterson? She runs the Cavalry Group, which represents JoLynn, Jack's Puppies, and commercial breeders. Mindy predicts other players in the pet industry could decide to open rescues. A lot of breeders have thought of calling themselves a non-profit rescue so they could continue to be in business because for so long, you know, if you're a licensed breeder, that's just the kiss of death to call yourself that. But if you're a rescue shelter, well, then you're, you know, perfect. You're great. So it's all about this feel-good rhetoric. Mindy told me that there could be even more pet sale ordinances than I realized.

She said they are getting passed so quickly, the Cavalry Group now estimates there are almost 500 nationwide. By passing these laws, it vilifies the breeders. It vilifies the pet stores. It makes USDA look like a sham. It does all the breeders. It vilifies the pet stores. It makes USDA look like a sham. It does all of those things. And it's a joke. It's all a smokescreen.

Now, I didn't just play that because she used the name of the podcast. She hit on a bigger issue. These new laws are trying to stop bad breeders. But really, they also imply that a USDA license is not a guarantee against cruelty. They're essentially calling a major department of the federal government ineffective and the licenses worthless. I need USDA when I go testify in opposition to these pet sale bans. We need to be able to lean on USDA and say, look, these dog breeders are USDA licensed. They are jumping through hoops and they are upstanding kennels that are doing their job and not only meeting but exceeding the rules and regulations. That should carry some weight, but it doesn't

anymore. In a way, Mindy Patterson is saying the breeders and brokers want the USDA to change too. And she's not wrong to want that. If the USDA reformed, both people like Mindy Patterson and Mindy Callison could win. Dogs might be treated better, and the public would have a reason to trust breeders and brokers more. But is that in the cards? That's next. If you've listened to this whole podcast, you remember Barbara Kavars and Whitefire Kennel.

I mean, what did I do that you decided that they should do this? It's a totality. Regulators saw the conditions at her facility and let her stay open until the local sheriff stepped in. Barbara was licensed with both the state and the USDA. Hearing about situations like that can make it hard to understand when someone like Mindy Patterson makes the argument for even less regulation. It should be about your reputation and how you operate your business. And, you know, if you are breeding healthy, purpose-bred, family-friendly puppies for puppy buyers, that's all we're looking for. But you see how things get twisted? I mean, I'm

tiptoeing around the words here because it can all be taken out of context so easily. I understand what you're saying. And the animal rights advocates might take this on the internet and clip it up and move it and put it somewhere else. But by not answering, then there's not a real answer anywhere. So why, why always turn to them as an excuse? You know, our focus right now and the reason the animal rights organizations are concerned, and we do lean on that as an explanation. I won't say necessarily an excuse, but it is an explanation because they have become prevalent in every aspect of our lives. The problem with Mindy's logic here is that if there's nothing to hide, then what's the big deal? One of the things that you had talked about before was just protecting breeders' privacy,

protecting their ability to do business and how their business operates. And so you close things off because activists are sneaking in with cameras. I mean, they're like legitimate concerns. But then there is also the aspect of why not show the consumer how it works? Like, why not show them where the puppy comes from? Why not just show them that it's not really that bad? I believe that is an effort that is growing. I think we will start to see much more of that. You know, the first thing that I know breeders hear from puppy buyers is I want to meet the parents. I want to see your kennel. You know, I want this, I want that. Well, those demands are based on the stirring of propaganda out there on the internet. Mindy believes animal rights groups exaggerate how much cruelty there is in the breeding industry. Do you think that those bad conditions do exist, though, and that the USDA can let them continue to exist?

I do think that they can. I think that if they're not cured, then they need to move to the next phase. Moving to the next phase would mean shutting the business down. That's not what she wants to see. Mindy told me she's seen too many situations where an inspector decides how tough a punishment is and not the law. So she would prefer to see problems solved by the industry itself without more involvement from the government. But she gets that the reputation of the USDA directly affects the reputation of commercial breeders. You know, we need consistency from USDA. We need them to follow their rules. So how effectively does the USDA regulate dog breeders?

A new audit from their inspector general can give us at least an idea. The inspector general is a government job where the person is supposed to turn a critical eye to their own colleagues. And they definitely did that in this case. Right now, the USDA is failing to actually do proper oversight to ensure that facilities are even meeting those bare minimum requirements because they're simply failing to have a inspection and oversight system that makes sense, and they're failing to enforce the law. This is Ingrid Segerman. She's an attorney with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA. They filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the USDA claiming the department

was failing to enforce the law. She told me that the audit from the USDA's inspector general proves the department could be doing a better job. They did uncover all these other problems with the agency's licensing program and simply the way they're recording information. There were all these flaws in their system. By flaws in their system, Ingrid means a couple things. First, the audit found that the USDA department in charge of handling complaints against breeders wasn't being fair. The way the department responded to complaints varied from inspector to inspector. There wasn't

any consistency. They also didn't keep track of violations well because of the software inspectors were using. It was unreliable. Someone could search the same thing twice and get different results each time. And then there's this other issue. Inspectors for the USDA are increasingly using something called teachable moments. It sounds so good when really it's so bad. A teachable moment is when an inspector sees something that goes against policy, but they don't write down a violation. Instead, they just tell the breeder why it's wrong and how they could do better. This wasn't part of the audit. The ASPCA criticized the use of teachable moments in their lawsuit. It became an issue around 2016 when the USDA updated their

guidance to inspectors. And then within just two years, the Washington Post found that the number of animal welfare citations dropped by 65 percent. And we really have no way of knowing how the agency is assessing teachable moments in their decision-making about whether or not to bring an enforcement action. What's wild about all this is that the USDA already has the authority to temporarily suspend a breeder's license, revoke the license, or fine a dealer up to $10,000 per violation. That's according to the ASPCA lawsuit.

But since 2017, the lawsuit claims that the USDA has not issued a single penalty on a commercial dog breeder for any violations. That's something that the agency is already empowered to do. They're simply either choosing not to do that, or they feel that they, for some reason, can't do that. In response, the USDA department that oversees dog breeders agreed to correct the errors found by the inspector general. The USDA also said they have started using new software and told me that they did revoke one dog breeders license in 2020. One.

These complaints about inconsistency go back decades. Why does it take a lawsuit from an animal rights organization to try to get the USDA to enforce the law? There is actually a multi-billion dollar part of our economy that is very interested in defending the privacy of JoLynn's business and commercial breeders. But it's got nothing to do with dogs. The puppies are the low-hanging fruit. They're going after the low-hanging fruit, and once they do that, then they come after the food animals. That's coming up.

A big part of this podcast has been about how the law sees dogs as a product, while many of us see them as members of our family. The law treats dogs like livestock. The same inspectors checking to see how pork producers treat their pigs are also checking to see how JoLynn treats her puppies. So, a bill that changes the treatment of dogs could end up impacting other livestock. It's a familiar argument you hear in politics, the slippery slope. If you do one thing, what's to stop you from doing something else? In these arguments, the something slope. If you do one thing, what's to stop you from doing something else?

In these arguments, the something else is usually horrible. Mindy Callison, the activist, gets told that if dogs get stricter protections, the rules could end up affecting our whole food supply. In the Midwest here, it's the trickle-down effect. What I hear all the time is if we are pushing for laws for dogs, someday we're going to push for laws for hogs. Mindy thinks the companies that make billions producing beef and pork have a vested interest in stopping laws aimed at dog breeders.

First the dogs, then the hogs. It's not a big leap to assume that if an inspector is allowed to be stricter inspecting one kind of animal operation, that down the if an inspector is allowed to be stricter inspecting one kind of animal operation, that down the line, they'll be allowed to be stricter with other kinds of breeding facilities too. An example of this that's gotten a lot of attention is Proposition 12 in California. Voters passed a law saying that any meat that comes from animals not given the required space cannot be sold in the state. In 2021, the Associated Press found that only 4% of hog operations in the country fit the requirements, meaning Californians might not have access to the same food they're used to. Bringing home the bacon could soon cost more in California,

but grocers are working to delay the so-called bacon law that would plump up pork prices in the state. I asked Mindy Callison about the California law. They just said our stores can only buy from hog farmers that give adequate space. That's it. They're not saying you have to be vegan, you have to be vegetarian. They're just saying if we're going to be buying your product, you need to be doing better as a business. The other Mindy, who works

with ranchers and breeders, doesn't think the government should tell them what to do. We have to leave it up to the farmers and ranchers to decide, not the urban activists that think that, you know, they're not doing a good enough job raising their food. We're on Zoom and it's a little glitchy, but Mindy gets to the heart of the matter right here. And look, I'm a big, I'm big on liberty. I'm big on freedom. If somebody wants to be vegan, I support you. But don't force your beliefs on me

through policy and legislative means. Listen to the language being used here. Urban activists, liberty and freedom. As a political reporter, I couldn't help but hear the same language that become a part of so many debates today. This is a culture war. How else did we go from dogs to hogs

to vegans and liberty? Jolynn creating Hobo Canine just to go around a new big city law is like a bizarre metaphor for our current political landscape. It's the idea that big city and coastal elites, far removed from where their food comes from, are trying to tell Midwesterners and Southerners how to live. All of that spills over into how we regulate, of all things, dog breeding. Breeders with violations can keep selling to JoLynn because of the political infighting at the USDA. Recently, how they enforce the rules seems to shift with who

is in the White House. But consumers aren't waiting for D.C. to get its act together. I've already told you about several lawsuits against JoLynn and her business associates. It can honestly be hard to keep track. After Jolynn's attorney settled the case from the Iowa AG's office, there were two other cases left connected to Jolynn's rescues. There was the one filed against PetConnect Rescue in Missouri,

that's when someone used the name of a reputable real rescue, and the other involved an animal rights group out of California. It turns out, a couple of people who'd bought dogs they thought were rescues heard about the California lawsuit. And one of those consumers was a man named Cody Latzer, and he bought an Australian cattle dog from a pet store in California.

Mindy traced the microchip number in his dog and found that the puppy had gone through three different dog rescues on its way to a California pet store. And it started at one of JoLynn's fake rescues. So all you have to do is lay this paperwork out side by side by side to see that the microchip numbers, the puppies are being laundered through several different organizations to try and throw people off the trail. Their class action lawsuit has two named plaintiffs, Rebecca Carey and Cody Latzer. I talked to Danny Waltz, who you've already heard from. He's an attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund,

which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Rebecca and Cody. It's actually a RICO lawsuit. The RICO is a federal law that was initially created to confront the mob and how the mob would infiltrate into regular businesses. The R in RICO is for racketeer, which means you just made money by doing something illegal. And what it does is it prohibits groups working together in conspiracy form to engage in racketeering activity. And racketeering activity is defined fairly broadly, but it includes money laundering, various forms of money laundering. And that's really what's occurring here.

Remember, since Jolin settled the last case, she never admitted guilt. So if these consumers win this case, they'll have proved Jolin is guilty of money laundering, a federal crime that carries up to 20 years in prison or a half million dollar fine. Their lawsuit also demands five million dollars, much more than the $60,000 fine Jolin paid to settle last time. The number of challenges Jolynn is facing keeps growing. She's now got yet another lawsuit, subpoenaing her business, her family, and co-workers. Laws are being passed all over the country banning the way she does business. At some point, doesn't something have to give? What happens next could change the future of

the pet industry. That's coming up on the season finale of Smokescreen, Puppy Kingpin. Smokescreen, Puppy Kingpin is a production of Neon Hum Media. It is reported, hosted, and written by me, Alex Schumann. Lead producer is Natalie Wren. Our editor is Catherine St. Louis. Chloe Chobel is our associate producer. Managing producer is Samantha Allison. Executive producer at Neon Hum is Jonathan Hirsch.

Fact-checking by Sarah Ivry. Asha Ivanovich composed the theme song and music heard throughout this series. Additional tracks by Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Sound design and mixing by Hansdale Shee. Special thanks to Ted Enoji, Amy Jensen, Odelia Rubin, Kate Mishkin, Crystal Genesis, Muna Danish, and Joanna Clay.